Enrage timers do not make sense... I have no idea how anyone could defend them in this game.

It's the little things like this...

It's to protect Blizzard from bots - without enrage timers, bots will be made and equipped with nothing but LOH and VIT gear, do nearly no DPS, but slowly mow down everything everywhere.

So basically, because lol multiplayer the single-player experience is diminished.

I wish they'd change the enrage timer to a 'lulz only blue loot timer'. No pack enrage, just after the same previous enrage time they only drop blues. (and for fun change the enrage icon to a crying treasure chest)

Of course, this is no fun for any normal players either, but I still think it'd be funny.

It's not fair to say that players "should know" that a power is over powered. How many people have played every class to 60, and then put more time after that, just to see how powerful powers are relative to each other?

Furthermore, a tiny amount of players actually read message boards or blogs. The common guy just wouldn't be aware of the issues.

Your gear is 100% not the issue, I cleared Act 1 Inferno on my barbarian with damn near half your stats and 21k hp.

As for your spec, I would switch out Seismic Slam for Earthquake. Earthquake synergizes really well with Wrath of the Berserker, you pop Wrath then cast Earthquake, which will get the 100% bonus damage from Wrath. That should help with elite packs since you'll be able to do some extreme burst damage on them. I'd also switch what you glyph Furious Charge with, either use Dreadnought for the healing bonus or drop it entirely and take Leap with Iron Impact, it's VERY good and my personal preference over Furious Charge in general. Frenzy w/ Sidearm was always better than Maniac, so stick with that. I'd also switch out Weapon Master for either Brawler or Berserker Rage, I usually use Berserker Rage since you aren't always going to be fighting 3+ mobs at once, namely elites and bosses. If dying is as big of a problem as you say it is, ditch a DPS passive entirely and use Superstition on top of the two armor bonuses. Berserker Rage also works well if you ditch Seismic Slam because you pretty much have nothing that costs Fury other than WOTB since you can rune Earthquake not to have a rage cost.

You really shouldn't be having any trouble with your gear, even jailer/desecrator/arcane packs shouldn't be able to do much damage to you unless you don't ever move out of the gimmicks, ever. I play a Barbarian too and there is no way that the game actually got harder, it's much more manageable and A1 Inferno should be a total faceroll in your gear. I run into double elite packs as well, but they are a rarity, so unless someone at Blizzard HQ is actively trolling you for fun, you might be exaggerating at how bad these elite packs are.

Thank you for your suggestions. I took a look at my stash and the 735 dps mighty 2h I found last night is actually a 1h wep. That allowed me to drop weaponmaster with no dps loss since mighty weps don't get a dps bonus from that, and subbed in brawler. Put in earthquake in for seismic slam. changed the rune on furious charge to be dreadnought and did a quick run to get the crown in a1. Didn't run into any jailers or wallers to need furious charge so i might put leap with iron impact in, but except for the mortars guys which run around and ruin my earthquake, elite packs went down quite fast. No double packs, which is unusual for me since I almost always get one for a given area. Kinda miss the LoH from my dagger, but I will try do do a full a1 clear tonight and see if I can get by without it.

What would you suggest for a follower? The enchantress has a nice armor bonus, but she is pretty much dead for any elite or champion pack fight, when i actually need that armor bonus. She stands in some aoe affect or gets one shot by a ranged attack and thats that.

What amazes me is that people are throwing hissy-fits about it. Everyone knew that stuff was overpowered. Any reasonable person would have seen these nerfs coming and would not have built their characters around them so much.

IAS nerf: Fair enough - people knew it was coming and could have adapted.Unintended bug that renders a particular build unusable (zombie bears): You bet I'm going to bitch about it.

I have been saying this for a while. If you are a DH and not running displacement/TA you are doing it wrong imho.

Before the 1.03 patch and before I purchased the LOH crossbow I would have disagreed with you. I needed the extra two seconds of Smoke Screen just so I could deal more damage to Reflect Damage mobs without killing myself.

Now that I have that LOH though? I'm totally using it. Using SS as an escape and reposition instead of as something necessary to even deal damage is a lot more fun.

I'm going to be experimenting with both Ball Lightning and Frost Arrow tonight. I like the idea of using Frost Arrow as my primary attack and Multishot to clear large mobs of weaker creatures but if I want the bat for the Hatred regen I have to give up Multishot and I'll end up sticking with Ball Lightning for its superior ability to deal damage to large groups of targets.

I'm also going to experiment with using the Enchantress more because her defense buff adds a pretty decent amount of effective HP. If that tips me over to surviving a melee hit in Act 3, I'll probably end up ditching the Scoundrel.

The funny thing is that IAS is still a pretty great way to improve your DPS. Since I read the 1.0.3 preview, I got rid of all of my IAS gear except my gloves (because they had 16%!). That went down to 8% with the patch, but still when I change out those gloves for some with more dex and crit and I lost DPS. I'm needing some ring upgrades, so I'm thinking of going the IAS route, because I imagine they'll be cheaper now too. It's just not as insane as it used to be. After seeing the nerf, I kind of understand why it needed to be done.

I found my first legendary item last night. Autumn's Call in act 2 nightmare. It's a pretty bad roll though (only 10% increased damage, near the low end of +Vit, and I don't remember any of the random stats being particularly good). I'm not sure what to do with it, as I will probably be able to find something better with my (currently level 9) wizard by the time it is level 32.

I found my first legendary item last night. Autumn's Call in act 2 nightmare. It's a pretty bad roll though (only 10% increased damage, near the low end of +Vit, and I don't remember any of the random stats being particularly good). I'm not sure what to do with it, as I will probably be able to find something better with my (currently level 9) wizard by the time it is level 32.

If you don't want to save it for another character or give it to a friend, than someone will buy it off the AH. Since the stats are low, just search for that item and find the lowest price and undercut that by a few thousand.

I picked up Leoric's Crown around level 40, with middling stats. I wore it for about two levels, found something better, and quickly sold it. Later I found a Blind Faith, which I wore for quite a few levels, and then I passed it to my fiance, whose WD is almost high enough level to use it.

I generally undercut the market on all my items since it's better to me to have the item move than to spend an hour doing market research and get the best price. KT421's Discount Goods, open for business.

I found my first legendary item last night. Autumn's Call in act 2 nightmare. It's a pretty bad roll though (only 10% increased damage, near the low end of +Vit, and I don't remember any of the random stats being particularly good). I'm not sure what to do with it, as I will probably be able to find something better with my (currently level 9) wizard by the time it is level 32.

mode="self pity"

Level 60 DH, Act 1 Inferno, 75 hours 10 minutes of game time as of this moment.

Zero legendary drops.

How are set items even a thing in this game? Do they expect you to actually FIND all the items in a set, or is the expectation that you just AH the set together?

I found my first legendary item last night. Autumn's Call in act 2 nightmare. It's a pretty bad roll though (only 10% increased damage, near the low end of +Vit, and I don't remember any of the random stats being particularly good). I'm not sure what to do with it, as I will probably be able to find something better with my (currently level 9) wizard by the time it is level 32.

mode="self pity"

Level 60 DH, Act 1 Inferno, 75 hours 10 minutes of game time as of this moment.

Zero legendary drops.

How are set items even a thing in this game? Do they expect you to actually FIND all the items in a set, or is the expectation that you just AH the set together?

/mode

Most legendaries are underpowered right now. I'd rather find a nice level 63 rare than a legendary.

I found my first legendary item last night. Autumn's Call in act 2 nightmare. It's a pretty bad roll though (only 10% increased damage, near the low end of +Vit, and I don't remember any of the random stats being particularly good). I'm not sure what to do with it, as I will probably be able to find something better with my (currently level 9) wizard by the time it is level 32.

If you don't want to save it for another character or give it to a friend, than someone will buy it off the AH. Since the stats are low, just search for that item and find the lowest price and undercut that by a few thousand.

I picked up Leoric's Crown around level 40, with middling stats. I wore it for about two levels, found something better, and quickly sold it. Later I found a Blind Faith, which I wore for quite a few levels, and then I passed it to my fiance, whose WD is almost high enough level to use it.

I generally undercut the market on all my items since it's better to me to have the item move than to spend an hour doing market research and get the best price. KT421's Discount Goods, open for business.

That's been my strategy as well. I also found (for buying) that items without a set buyout price generally don't sell, so I look for auctions with no buyout and <30m left for equipping my character.

If anybody else is working through act 2 nightmare, my battletag is Hactar#1311.

I've found 2 legendaries, a crappy monk hand weapon and a not terrible piece of chest armor. They're both pretty low level since I found them in Normal or Nightmare Act I but I'm keeping them around because it's cool having them in my stash.

On a similar note, am I the only DH using the Cinder Arrow rune with Hungering Arrow? I tried Devouring Arrow (since everyone was saying to use it) but for whatever reason it didn't seem to have the same punch as Cinder. Maybe as my gear gets better that will change or I'm just missing something.

On a similar note, am I the only DH using the Cinder Arrow rune with Hungering Arrow? I tried Devouring Arrow (since everyone was saying to use it) but for whatever reason it didn't seem to have the same punch as Cinder. Maybe as my gear gets better that will change or I'm just missing something.

I think the fire dot doesn't stack with itself. Just overwrites. ...right?

I think this is the sort of thing they need to fix, especially with the skyrocketed repair costs. Some combos are simply unbeatable, or so difficult as to be not worth it. It really hurts the experience.

I'm of the opinion that every mechanic should be survivable with a combination of skill and gear. The problem with these types of ridiculous combos is that they render both skill and gear irrelevant.

On a similar note, am I the only DH using the Cinder Arrow rune with Hungering Arrow? I tried Devouring Arrow (since everyone was saying to use it) but for whatever reason it didn't seem to have the same punch as Cinder. Maybe as my gear gets better that will change or I'm just missing something.

I used Cinder until I switched to Shatter; each of the 3 resulting arrows can seek a target so it seems to work out great for me.

I have not run into that specific combo too often, although I seem to get vortex/arcane/jailer/desecrator quite often, which is almost as bad in certain terrains (narrow hallways), but yeah, that is probably worthy only of dragging off to a corner and leaving it there.

On a similar note, am I the only DH using the Cinder Arrow rune with Hungering Arrow? I tried Devouring Arrow (since everyone was saying to use it) but for whatever reason it didn't seem to have the same punch as Cinder. Maybe as my gear gets better that will change or I'm just missing something.

I used Cinder until I switched to Shatter; each of the 3 resulting arrows can seek a target so it seems to work out great for me.

Then *I* must be the only guy using Evasive Fire + Covering Fire as my primary attack. I realized I was spamming it so much that I finally plopped it onto my LMB. Covering fire gives it a bit of spread, and when coupled with Tactical Advantage it doesn't just give a temporary bump to movement, but also to attack speed.

On a similar note, am I the only DH using the Cinder Arrow rune with Hungering Arrow? I tried Devouring Arrow (since everyone was saying to use it) but for whatever reason it didn't seem to have the same punch as Cinder. Maybe as my gear gets better that will change or I'm just missing something.

I used Cinder until I switched to Shatter; each of the 3 resulting arrows can seek a target so it seems to work out great for me.

Then *I* must be the only guy using Evasive Fire + Covering Fire as my primary attack. I realized I was spamming it so much that I finally plopped it onto my LMB. Covering fire gives it a bit of spread, and when coupled with Tactical Advantage it doesn't just give a temporary bump to movement, but also to attack speed.

I don't use Evasive Fire because I'm already using up my Discipline pool in tough fights as it is. Caltrops and Smoke Screen are both just better when it comes to creating distance and kiting, and only Smoke Screen serves as a split second "Oh shit!" button.

On a similar note, am I the only DH using the Cinder Arrow rune with Hungering Arrow? I tried Devouring Arrow (since everyone was saying to use it) but for whatever reason it didn't seem to have the same punch as Cinder. Maybe as my gear gets better that will change or I'm just missing something.

I used Cinder until I switched to Shatter; each of the 3 resulting arrows can seek a target so it seems to work out great for me.

I kind of did the reverse as you and am still using Cinder. Even with the dot overwriting itself it seemed to perform pretty well. More testing is in order I guess.

Also, I swear 80% of the champion packs yesterday and today have been reflects damage. On my DH this means I have to draw the fight out a lot longer or I'll kill myself which makes some packs harder since I can't just focus fire and burn them down as quickly as possible.